Playing the Game Track Ends a Boom Run on the Boards The l.C.A.A.A.A. Meet Marked the End of an Indoor Season that Saw Individuals Dominate Even the Heralded Struggle Among the Member Colleges for Collegiate Team Title N a Sunday night last week Ottawa Games, and the A.A.U. meet that pre­ room floor—the announcer's amplifier re­ and the New York Americans, Na­ ceded the I.C.A.A.A.A.'s had played to peatedly centered the crowd's attention O tional Hockey League laggards, packed houses. There were plenty of empty upon individuals . "the bar is now at played a dull game before a "prize fight- seats last week at the l.C.A.A.A.A. meet. fourteen feet five inches . Keith Brown size" crowd on the ice in Madison Square Those three preceding indoor meets had will try for a world's record . George Garden. Less than twenty-four hours later, been carefully built up around that color­ Spitz is jumping for a new record. ..." ful quest for the Four-Flat Thus did individuals steal the show from Mile, the Cunningham-Bon- the much advertised three-way struggle for thron-Venzke struggle. There team supremacy among N. Y. U., Yale, was the drama that drew the and Manhattan. It was the memory of a crowds. Those able sportsmen whole season's struggle for mile honors who direct the destinies of the between three courageous young men, in­ LC.A.A.A.A. had other ideas dividuals; the thought that plugging —-their meet was to be a strug­ Venzke, not once the victor this season in gle between teams for a team that struggle, still lords it over his con­ title in which individual per­ querors with his 4:10 indoor mile record formers were to be subordinat­ set while he was still new on the boards— ed to team performances. those were the flashes that kept the crowd That sort of thing is all very awake, that made it a mite difficult to sum­ well for football, baseball, mon up a burst of enthusiasm when it was crew, and to a lesser degree, announced that the team from Manhattan outdoor track. It is rather dif­ College, a team that won only one first ficult to get very excited or place, had wrested the l.C.A.A.A.A. title even to keep up with team from Yale, a real team triumph, true standings in an indoor track enough. Especially would it be difficult for meet. Consider the meet in a spectator from Los Angeles, or Seattle, question: First it violated the or Dallas, or Chicago to produce a wild old adage that dictates con­ abandoned outburst of applause over such duct "when in Rome" by going a passing of an intercollegiate title. It was on the "metric standard" in all too local a finale. the events for the first time, all Greek even to New York's pop­ The meet was decided in the field events, ulation. Thus every event was those poor relations of track, and there to set a new intercollegiate were the only real records set: Spitz of © International record •—• metric — "confusion N. Y. U. in the high jump; Yale's Keith worse confounded." The meet Brown in the pole vault; Bowdoin's Bill Remarkable "candid camera" shot of the 1500-meter race Niblock with the sixteen-pound shot; and as Bonthron begins to stride out on the queer striped did start off in the intended spirit, with a toe-curling Henry Dryer of Rhode Island State with track to overhaul Venzke, out of sight in the picture. the thirty-five-pound weight. Crowley and Thompson of Manhattan, point winners, final for the 1600-meter relay press up in the pack strung out behind Bonthron in which it was easy to subor­ Perhaps in the Yale Bowl, or on Ohio dinate the individuals simply Field, or in Palmer Stadium, it would be carpenters had whittled, sawed, and ham­ because the relay is a team event. possible to think more of the team. But in mered together a transformation after the Right after the 1600-meter relay, atten­ Madison Square Garden, shelter for six- designs of Gustavus T. Kirby and that no­ tion was promptly focused back on indi­ day bike races and Socialist rallies, the torious mausoleum of sport was all dressed viduals when Bonthron pulled out past color of the 1934 campaign on the boards up in a fresh pine-board track, peppermint chugging Venzke to win the "Olympic will be painted in the history books more with the brilliant, game struggles of Glenn stripes painted to mark out the lanes, pits, Mile," metric approximation of the season's Cunningham, Bill Bonthron, Bill Graber, runaways., Kirby Camera Timers, contes­ headlined quest for mile honors. Venzke George Spitz, Walter Marty—those are the tants, benches, and derby-hatted officials held a long lead and had the crowd pulling names that made the season, not Yale or strewn willy nilly about on the boards in­ for him until the very last when all partizan Princeton or Manhattan or Fresno State. side the banked oval track. The track itself applause was drowned in one welling roar was an innovation—a twenty-seven-foot as Bonthron drove ahead on the soft, pine wide double track, a 133.3-meter oval in­ boards and went on past the 1500-meter side a 160-meter strip, all outlined in a finish to fail in a lone try for a measured SPORTS CALENDAR maze of colored stripes. This was the set­ mile record. The first lap of that race was GOLF ting, the party dress that the Garden wore run on the 133.3-meter track and then March 22-25—Open Tournament. in playing host for the first time to the switched out onto the 160-meter strip. There Augusta, Georgia. LC.A.A.A.A. indoor track meet, late resi­ seemed to be no confusion about crossing dent of draughty uptown New York armo­ the bewildering pattern of lines, but per­ HUNT RACE MEETING ries. This strictly collegiate affair was haps this innovation accounts for Bon- March 24—Carolina Cup, Camden, South Carolina. moved into the Garden "to accommodate thron's poor clocking at 3:57.4. Cunning­ the multitudes who have been unable to get ham was out of this particular chapter in POLO seats at these college games before." the struggle. Kansas University, his alma March 17-31—Open Championship, Burlingame Club, San Mateo, Cali­ But the publicity went astray for this mater, is not a member of the really quite fornia. last act of the indoor track season, the most Eastern and local LC.A.A.A.A. And always STEEPLECHASE prosperous since Nurmi furnished the breaking into the "dug dug dug" of the March 23—Grand National, Aintree, boards with a box office success back in spiked shoes on the clean pine boards— Liverpool, England. 1925. The Millrose Games, the N.Y.A.C. sounds like a dog scampering across a ball­ 24 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED March 17, 1934 The Literary Digest 25 Smoke 'til the Midnight Spread ...and still keep a fresh, cool mouth Do you keep lighting 'em without counting 'em from breakfast 'til the midnight spread? Then it's Spuds for you,.. if you'd like to have a fresh-tasting mouth all the while I What about this "fresh" taste? Is it menthol? Yes... but only indirectly. Spud's smoke contains hardly a trace of menthol. The menthol does its work in the cig­ SPUD arette. It simply lowers the temperature of the smoke. Therefore, what Spud gives you is just pure tobacco goodness with the heat MENTHOL-COOLED taken out. That's what causes the fresh, cool taste. Try a pack. CIGARETTES 20 FOR 15c • 125c IN CANADA) THE AXTON-FI5HER TOBACCO CO., INC., lOUISVIlLE, KENTUCKY PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 26 The Literary Digest March 17, 1934 Championships and Death at the Bridge Table By WALTER MALOWAN Member of the 1933 Ail-American Championship Team and Secretary of the International Contract Bridge Union HERE is great similarity between made his contract, while the declarer from golf tournaments and bridge tourna­ AKJ985 the Cavendish Club played for the drop of Tments. With very few exceptions the <^K762 that card and was set one trick. This bad final outcome is very close, and there are 085 guess cost his team 1560 points, while the usually eight or ten players or pairs who *K10 match was lost by a few hundred points are rated as having an almost even chance only. This hand enabled the "Four Horse­ 4k 4 AQ72 at the beginning. Another similarity is Husband men" to tie my team in the number of ^Q94 9AJ3 that, with the exception of rare upsets, W E matches won, and we ultimately lost in the 0 K .1 7 6 3 0 A Q 10 9 2 the winning player or pair will "come Wife play-oft. In this instance we were at least *Q753 •9iJ6 through" from among the favorites par­ spared the pangs of self-reproach, as the ticipating. Many a golf tournament has <|k A 10 6 3 fatal misplay was not made by our team. been lost through the ball "rimming the 9 10 8 5 Twenty points is the smallest margin cup" and many bridge championships 04 which has ever decided a team-of-four have been missed by the proverbial eye­ *A9842 match.